Germany’s financial regulator (BaFin) has granted a full MiCA license to one of Europe’s biggest fintechs, Trade Republic.
The license allows German-based Trade Republic to offer crypto custody to its four million customer base across 17 markets.
According to Circle executive Patrick Hansen, the full Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) license enables Trade Republic to execute or transmit client orders and offer transfer services.
“This means Trade Republic can now operate almost its entire crypto offering in-house across all 30 EEA states,” he wrote on X.
36% of all MiCA Licenses Granted by German Regulator
Germany has been. The frontrunner in the European crypto space, granting a full MiCA license to 9 crypto asset service providers (CASP).
Hansen emphasized that BaFin has granted “an impressive” 9 of the first 25 MiCA CASP licenses across the EU. This represents 36% of all EU-wide CASP licenses, he added.
As of April, only 15 CASPs were registered under the MiCA framework in the first 100 days of implementation. The number has since increased to 25, per Hansen’s latest post.
He further described the move as evidence of how CASPs and fintechs in the region are already making efforts to secure a license before the transition period ends.
“The race is on: neobanks, brokers, other fintechs, and even traditional banks are all moving quickly to secure their MiCA licenses before transition periods end.”
The BaFin approval comes at the same time as Luxembourg’s financial regulator granted a MiCA license to Bitstamp crypto exchange.
Crypto Firms Move Fast to Get License Before it’s Too Late
In April, a crypto lawyer Ilja Nikiforov predicted that up to 75% of Europe’s registered crypto companies (VASPs) will lose their status if they fail to get a MiCA license in time, which is by mid-2025.
So far, some of the key industry players such as Circle, OKX, BitGo Europe, MoonPay, among others, have obtained licenses. However, other global crypto players like Binance, Kraken, and Tether are not listed in the EU region. Interestingly, most of them have started the application process.
“Without a MiCA license, there’s no passporting of services across the 30 EEA countries — that’s why the industry is moving fast. The race is on to gain market share,” said Hansen in an April post.
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